


Path to Morning

by sugarspuncoeurls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Female Character of Color, Gen, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/pseuds/sugarspuncoeurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a strange kind of limbo, to exist in a body firmly planted in the present, with a mind and heart that longs only for the past.</p><p>She makes it easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Path to Morning

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Don't know when Abelas got into my headspace, but he was in it long enough to inspire this. Please enjoy, feedback is appreciated.

He didn’t think he’d ever truly get used to the absence of the wood. For centuries, he came awake to the sounds of echoing stone and the shifting armor of his warriors, exited Mythal’s temple to the sight of green moss and towering trees and the chirrup of birdsong. It was all he’d ever known, since Arlathan’s fall.

Now, his world’s green has all but disappeared, replaced by a seemingly endless expanse of shifting blues. The arbor trees are vanished but for one, a proud thing in the center of a square, its branches laden with lights and colored garlands. The birdsong has changed into the squawk of gulls over the bay and distant sea, and the stone has been water-washed smooth with the surf. And instead of his armor wrapped tight around his torso and limbs as he wakes, he’s swathed in soft knitted blankets, his skin bared to the breeze travelling through opened windows.

The scents, perhaps, are the closest to what he finds to still be familiar. Amidst the smell of salt on the air is the warm haze of sunrise, the earthy tang of herbs, and the subtle sweetness of newly-bloomed morning glory.

Abelas opens his eyes, folds the blankets aside and rises from his cot. His feet hit polished wood and plush rug, and like every time he experiences a brief moment of nostalgia. He dons linen and cotton he half expects to be hard leather and gold, walks a path through a home that should resound with the sharpening of arrow heads and swords, not ring with the play of wind chimes as he opens the door to a world drenched in gray light. He slows to drink it in, the silence before the people wake and the day begins, and then turns on his heel to the garden located just to the side of the small porch.

She’s already there, of course, sitting in the dark soil and watching the blooms, her elbows resting on the knees of her crossed legs and her head cradled in a hand. The skirt of her dress lies splayed around her, peach pieces of sheer fabric highlighting the black of her skin. It shifts as she tilts her head to glance at him over her shoulder and smile, the coarse gray curls of her hair falling like water foam down her back. “Morning,” she says, and he nods in greeting before opening the tiny gate and entering, savors the feel of his toes sinking into the loam. He walks the few steps to her side and folds his legs, settles into the one small space not occupied by flora. “Did you sleep well?”

He nods once, hesitates, then answers aloud. “I did.” Another uncertain pause. “Yourself?” he asks. Abrinay grins.

“I did, thank you.” Silence after their short exchange, though it lacks the discomfort he always expects. He’s still unused to the way the people commune here, their choices of words and the nuances therein. It’s yet another example of his freefall into a world so far removed from his own, both in terms of space and time. His dialect is an ancient, foreign thing, unknown to those residing in the Thedas of today, where the histories into which he was born are all but lost. It creates a strange kind of limbo, to exist in a body firmly planted in the present, with a mind and heart that longs only for the past.

She makes it easier. When he arrived in Afsaana, after months of independent travel before finally heeding the words he had exchanged with the one called Solas, she took him in without reluctance or question, gave him a bed and a wardrobe and a place at her table. And as one of the only two people in the world in possession of his people’s greatest treasure, she offered him a single mote of stability where there should have been none.

He owes her everything. Shameful that he has absolutely nothing to give.

The day has begun. The colored streaks bled into the sky by the sun, orange and indigo and the soft peach of his companion’s dress, are receding, and the gray light of a bygone moon is being unwoven by rays of yellow. Abelas breathes in the warming air, eyes the crystal dew drops beading the green leaves of the flowers, and thinks – not for the first time – that his coming to be here may not have been a curse, but rather the last loving act of a goddess for her child. At the very least, the thought brings comfort, grants him the strength to look towards the coming day with something other than uncertainty.

“You don’t have to join me every morning, y’know.” Abri looks at him again, her features poised in a smile that he’s starting to think never quite goes away. “Up before dawn can get a bit tiresome.”

“You partake in it often,” he points out, for once without rethinking his words a thousand times over. Abri notices, and her smile widens enough to reveal the gap between her two front teeth.

“I first snuck out of the house to watch the sunrise when I was four.” She chuckles. “Spend thirty years doing something, it’s bound to become habit.”

True enough. Perhaps ‘habit’ is the reason he still wakes every morning with his ears open for the sound of Mythal’s whisper, the brush of her aura across his skin. He smiles to himself, the tiniest bittersweet quirk to his lips. _I understand._

“Having company has given it a fresh feel, though.” Abri reaches out to brush one calloused fingertip along a curling white petal. “I like it.”

Abelas watches her movements, notes the softness encompassing them. He doesn’t recall when the last time was that he indulged in such a thing. In this moment, though, it surrounds him, in the loam cushioning his legs, in the arc of the clouds and the colors of the sky, in the fragile life of the blooming flora, and in the eyes and body of the faithful woman tending them.

This time when he smiles, he knows some of the bitterness has receded.

“Have you broken your fast this morning?” he asks, like he has every morning since the first time he found her out here, some three months ago.

“Not yet,” she answers. “Probably in a couple hours.” Pulling her hand back, she returns to cradling her chin, her lips thoughtfully pursed. “Some tea sounds nice, maybe.”

His smile widens a touch. “I will put the kettle on,” he replies, uncurling his legs and rising to his feet. Abri thanks him as he goes for the gate and lightly swings it open before shutting it behind him. Just before he rounds the corner of the house, the breeze blows in and catches on the braided silver tail of his hair, and fiddles playfully with the hem of his shirt. Soft.

He looks back to the garden. “Lady Abrinay,” he calls. When she lifts her head to regard him, he gently inclines his own. “Good morning.”

She beams. “Good morning, Abelas.”


End file.
